Google Video Not Ready for Prime Time?

elfguy writes "Ars Technica has a piece on the Google Video Store, and their opinion is that it seems a little rushed to market. The interface is very bad, with paid and free videos mixed together. While free videos can be viewed in Flash on any platform, their paid DRM'ed videos require a Windows program, and the page tells you the available formats only after you purchase it." From the article: "As I pointed out in my coverage of the keynote, for all of its evangelization of open standards, Google has done an about-face with the video store. Not only are the videos protected by DRM, but Google has gone and rolled its own home-grown solution instead of using one of the current solutions. On one level, that makes sense: Apple doesn't share its DRM, and Microsoft is Google's biggest competition. However, inflicting yet another flavor of DRM on the public goes against the desire of many in Congress and in the consumer electronics industry to see a single, unified standard emerge."

Comments

Gimmie

[somethingprolific]

I wish there were even MORE flavors of DRM. That gives us more choices to not care about...

Google video locks up windows for me

[Winlin]

I've tried 2 different video files, one last night and one this afternoon. Both get about 3/4 of the way through then my whole system freezes and I have to power totally off. It's too bad, because I have really enjoyed Google Earth and Talk and most of their offerings.